Everything is stupid, and so are we. Welcome to Jezebel’s Stupidest Summer Ever, a season-long celebration of our worst, most idiotic thoughts and opinions.

September is nigh, and with it brings the promise of crisp, apple-scented air, layers, and shorter, sweat-less days. As someone who expends most of their energy finding non-repetitive excuses as to why they can’t hang from late May to late August, the millisecond the blouses of spring are replaced by exposed shoulders and deeply-bronzed flesh, I recoil in fear. I venture outside, only under the cover of night. If not for delivery and grocery stores that open late, I’d starve. Do not ask me to the beach, for I will turn to stone and haunt your warm, bastard days from summer solstice to autumnal equinox, every year until you die. Then I will haunt your children.

As I age, I’ve learned the best part of the impending fall is not summer’s end and the joy that comes with knowing I can walk to and from my home to the corner store without sweltering in human stew, or the fact that everyone around me suddenly looks good in sweaters. It is, most importantly: the once brazen toe-exhibitionists have to hide their hooves in the tiny foot prisons known as shoes.

Listen, I believe in letting your boats breathe as much as the next person, but the only way to get that “ahh!” feeling of accomplishment after a long day of walking around and doing whatever the hell it is most people do all day, is to cover your tootsies and expose them, to yourself, your partner, your dog, whomever—in the comfort of your own living quarters. If I can peep your freshly-applied pedicure from my window seat at a Chipotle in the middle of the afternoon, then we’ve got ourselves a problem.

Advertisement

And that’s just for the folks who partake in basic, foundational foot hygiene (if you possess the ability to, you should be—every lazy Susan reading this post should take care of their feet) Unfortunately, this is not the case for most people, according to my observations every summer. Those without a care in the world and a toe without a bunion seem to think everyone else would love to see what only a podiatrist really should: that which, during the other nine months of the year, hides beneath socks.

I’m no doctor, but I’m also going to go ahead and wager that such exposing footwear can’t be great for you, either. Flip-flops sure as hell lack any semblance of arch support, and it wasn’t so long ago that we learned translucent, plastic pumps, as popularized by Kim Kardashian-West and crew this summer, only serve to act as a petri dish for foot fungi. So not only are you voluntarily showing me, god and whomever else your nasty ass feet, they’re only going to get nastier—and flatter! It’s unhealthy!

If that doesn’t convince you, then, well, you’re a lost cause. Or, perhaps, you might be reading this and thinking, Wow, that bitch is really sitting here, apparently alone in a Chipotle, complaining about my feet. You’re wrong. I am merely suggesting that you not give toe fetishists a free show. And soon you won’t have a choice in the matter, because a gorgeous and gentle breeze has another thing coming. As red and orange and brown foliage falls romantically from the trees above you, it will whisper: Fuck your toes.